Can you communicate what a Web site is about to millions of sports fans looking for entertainment above all else? Now that the Super Bowl is over, let's examine how well the online firms that bought ads fared in delivering spots that effectively communicated their online services.
Some companies did well. But it looks like others left viewers scratching their heads...
CareerBuilder
Online career search service CareerBuilder offered up a 60-second ad for the Super Bowl that used the tagline, "It might be time (to look for another job)" after providing examples of thoughts some workers might have when they're upset with their careers. My favorite: sitting next to a man who clips his toenails in the office...in his underwear.
It might have been somewhat entertaining, but CareerBuilder's ad didn't explain how the company would help job-seekers and opted instead, to deliver its URL at the end of the commercial. For those who have heard of CareerBuilder, that may have been enough. But for others who have never been to the company's site, the commercial won't answer why they should go there to find a job. Shouldn't that have been the point of the ad in the first place?
Cars.com
Cars.com is a popular destination for people who want to research, sell, or buy a car. But the company's Super Bowl commercial takes viewers through the life of David Abernathy, a supremely capable and confident individual who achieved great success in his life. Towards the end of the ad, Cars.com is finally mentioned as David worries about buying a car. Evidently, the online hub helped him in that endeavor.
Most of the commercial had nothing to do with cars at all. And even when the narrator finally mentioned the site, it only left about 10 seconds for the viewer to gain a solid understanding of what Cars.com is all about.
The commercial did tell viewers that Cars.com will help them buy a car, but it failed to inform them about the other site features they may have been interested in, like research and the option to sell their vehicles. Maybe that was Cars.com's intention all along, but I'm not convinced that talking about just one of its offerings for a few seconds in 30-second commercial is all that effective.
E*Trade
With the help of two babies, E*Trade Financial used its 30-second Super Bowl ad to promote its investment services. During the first 20 seconds of the commercial, the babies mentioned the troublesome economy and their need for a tool like E*Trade to help them "take control" of their investments. The ad ended with a narrator asking viewers to open one of the "1,000 new accounts opened each day" and "take control with E*Trade."
Much like other companies, E*Trade used its Super Bowl ad to provide more entertainment value than brand promotion. Sure, the babies were entertaining and it got a chuckle out of me, but simply saying that users can "take control" of their investments with E*Trade doesn't tell me what the company does.
E*Trade could have promoted its brand more effectively if it eliminated the banter between the babies and had them discuss all the features E*Trade offers instead. Without that, users who have never used or heard of E*Trade only know that the company lets them "take control" of their investments. But how?
GoDaddy
Domain registrar GoDaddy has always been known to provide sexy commercials to promote its brand. This year's two Super Bowl ads were no different.
Dubbed "Shower," GoDaddy's first ad showed race car driver Danica Patrick, jumping into a shower as a group of boys watched. The other, named "Enhanced," brings Patrick and three other women into a courtroom to discuss "enhancements." The ad is meant to make viewers believe that the women are discussing enhancements of the anatomical sort, but Patrick says that she "enhanced her brand" by buying a domain name through GoDaddy.
GoDaddy's "Shower" commercial didn't say anything about GoDaddy's services and its story had nothing to do with domain registration. That said, it did ask viewers to watch the "unrated" version of the commercial on GoDaddy.com. That's a ploy the company has been using for years, so it must work.
The "Enhanced" commercial does a better job of discussing what GoDaddy actually does. That said, it only mentioned domains in passing and even then it was sandwiched between discussions about enhancements that may or may not have been made to the actresses' bodies. Suffice it to say that domain registration wasn't the memorable part of that commercial.
Hulu
Online video site Hulu offered up an ad, called "Alec in Huluwood" for the Super Bowl, starring veteran actor Alec Baldwin. The 60-second ad takes place in an underground laboratory where Baldwin discusses in detail how Hulu will ensure you won't escape TV content, while reducing your brain "to a cottage cheese-like mush." The spot ends with a tentacle emerging from Baldwin's suit jacket and his claim that "we're aliens, and that's how we roll."
Hulu may have taken a decidedly extreme tack to promote its brand, but it did that exceptionally well. Combining a star from one of TV's hottest comedies, 30 Rock, along with some comedy, the commercial kept audiences captivated as Baldwin skillfully laid out the business model of Hulu: "Hulu beams TV to your portable computing devices, giving you more of the cerebral gelatinizing shows you want anytime, anywhere, for free."
Before the commercial aired, Hulu was known to a relatively small number of people in the Super Bowl viewing audience. But after the ad aired, everyone knew what Hulu is, how it works, and most importantly, that it's free.
It was a perfectly-crafted commercial from both an entertainment and marketing perspective.
Monster
Job search service Monster unveiled a 30-second spot for the Super Bowl that saw the camera swing 180-degrees around a wall. On one side, the boss of a company had a moose's head hanging from the wall in his beautiful office. On the other side, the rest of the animal's body was resting in the middle of an employee's desk as the narrator asked if it's time to find another job. After that, the narrator mentioned how many job listings are on the site and how to get there.
Monster's ad may have been simple, but it was extremely effective. It provided viewers with some entertainment--a must at the Super Bowl--but it used it to get to the marketing side of the ad, which mentioned the company's "millions of job listings."
Perhaps most important, Monster's ad included the company's URL: Monster.com. Many of the viewers may have already known it and even if the company didn't add the ".com", some would find their way to the site. But spelling it out makes it easier for the viewer and gets them to the site sooner. It's a simple thing, but it shouldn't have been overlooked by so many of the other companies advertising their brands at the Super Bowl--be they Web-based businesses or not.
Overstock.com
Online discount retailer Overstock.com made an appearance in this year's Super Bowl with the help of NBA player, Carlos Boozer. The ad starts with Boozer at a computer scrolling through Overstock's listings. Children standing around Boozer ask him what different products around his home are and he responds with the percentage discount. The ad ends with one child picking up his 2008 Olympic Gold medal asking him what it is. "That's about 20 years of dedication, right there," he responded.
I don't quite see the point of the ad. When Overstock's Web page is shown in the beginning of the commercial, there's no way to tell which site it is. You can't even see its logo in the few seconds that it's displayed.
Worse, the discount percentages Boozer throws out mean nothing without context, which eventually comes at the very end of the commercial when the company's logo and name are displayed. In the process, there was little indication given to the viewer about why they should choose Overstock over any other online retail destination.
Priceline
Priceline, the online travel deals site, featured William Shatner in its ad this year. The ad starts with a married couple discussing their desire to go on vacation, but eventually realizing that they couldn't afford it. Shatner, who was outside their home in a van, tells the husband to repeat after him and goes on to explain to the wife how they can save money on a four-star hotel by using Priceline. He does so, at times dropping into the old Captain Kirk-style of speech with its halting cadence. The ad ends with the wife agreeing to book the reservation.
Priceline's commercials are barely different each time they air, but they work. The ad offered some entertainment value and throughout, the message was made clearly to the audience: if you want to save money when you travel, listen to Priceline. Whether or not that's true is a different story. But the ad left little doubt in the viewers' minds. It was well crafted.
Note: Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen Hulu's Super Bowl ad.
Google's "don't be evil" motto has been the target of the occasional critic. Hulu, however, has declared in its hyped-up Super Bowl TV ad that it is evil--and it's not making any apologies.
The Web video hub, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., promised to "reveal its secret" in the Super Bowl ad created by agency Crispin Porter & Borgusky, which was running on NBC on Sunday evening. It was an important debut for Hulu, as many television audiences had likely never heard of it. Indeed, when I tried to watch the ad on the Web for the first time, Hulu's servers were overloaded, indicating server demand was high.
But eager nerds who were hoping for a big announcement of new content or a hardware tie-in were probably disappointed: the "secret" was decidedly tongue-in-cheek. We hope.
The ad, called "Alec in Huluwood," stars veteran actor Alec Baldwin, currently in the cast of the NBC show 30 Rock, narrating a 60-second spot that takes place in what appears to be an underground laboratory facility beneath the famed Hollywood sign.
"You know they say TV will rot your brain?" Baldwin asks as he descends in an elevator. "That's absurd. TV only softens the brain like a ripe banana. To take it all the way, we've created Hulu."
The thinking, per Baldwin's monologue, is that if there's loads and loads of TV content available on the Web, you can't possibly escape it ("I mean, what're you going to do? Turn off your TV and your computer?") And Hulu, he says, was created with sordid ulterior motives: "Once your brain is reduced to a cottage cheese-like mush, we'll scoop them out with a melon baller and gobble them right on up."
A tentacle slips out of Baldwin's suit jacket. "Because we're aliens, and that's how we roll."
Guess my "Hulu is people" theory wasn't that far off.
If you're the kind of person who likes to watch football games with a laptop sitting beside the chicken wings and popcorn, then you may want to add Twitter to the party mix for today's Super Bowl.
But will you be watching the game, or the commercials? For some of the Twitter crowd -- as is true for many others watching the game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers -- the big deal will be the ads.
Hence, the 2009 Twitter Bowl, the second annual microblogged "conversation about Super Bowl ads," where participants will discuss and rate the ads by adding "#superbowlads" to their tweets.
Writes PR maven Brian Solis, who'll be involved in summing up the results:
This year, we've also rallied the support of Louis Gray, Guy Kawasaki, and Jesse Stay, founder of SocialToo. Since Twitter is rooted in public interaction and provides the ability to extend its functionality, I wanted to find a Twitter application that would allow us to not only monitor discussions and ratings related to #superbowlads, but also provide the ability to capture and present votes. This might be one of the biggest "social" focus groups to date...
Here's one response to an ad early in the game from automaker Hyundai, from Twitter user practicalwitch: "Um, my Hyundai doesn't look nearly as cool as the ones in these commercials. Can I get a ruling here?
Meanwhile, there seem to be a number of general Super Bowl threads at Twitter, including one from the NFL itself.
The Super Bowl is Sunday, and undoubtedly many of you are gearing up for a big weekend filled with fun, excitement, and a Cardinals victory (yeah, I said it). Some of you might have a checklist filled with snacks and drinks you want to pick up before Sunday, but I'm here to tell you that that's not all you should have on that list. Snacks are great and drinks are better, but once your fridge is stocked, you'll want something to help you pass the time.
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Be nice with Give Real
Want to be the nice person this weekend? Then sign up for Give Real and send your friends a Pittsburgh Pint or an Arizona Ale.
You log on to Give Real's site, give it your credit card information, and send a gift of beer to your friends. You can suggest a particular beer for your friends to try out and add a personal message. But it's not like the beer goes through the mail: Once the recipient gets the gift notification, they accept it by registering for Gift Real and inputting their own credit card information. When that's complete, they can buy a beer at any restaurant or bar and once that transaction posts to their account, Give Real will refund their money and take the cost of the beer out of your account.
Credit card monitoring may not sound too appealing and I wouldn't be too happy sending my credit card information to a start-up that I've never heard of, but when it comes to the Super Bowl and to beer, all bets are off.
See the past with Hulu
Hulu, the professional video content site that's backed by NBC and Fox, may have a Super Bowl ad this year, but that's not all its doing for the big game. Friday, the company announced that you can view all the commercials from Super Bowl XLII on its site.
The page features all the best commercials from the past year--55 in all--and to be quite honest, I didn't realize how entertaining many of them are. I enjoyed my 30 minutes watching all the commercials. I think you will, too.
Once you find some you like, you can also use Hulu's widget, which it unveiled Friday, that allows you to post your favorite commercials to your blog. It's a neat tool that works well.
But there's more. This year's Super Bowl will have, of course, its own commercials. And instead of just telling your friends about them Monday morning, you can actually show them which were your favorite, since Hulu will be adding each commercial to its Super Bowl page as soon as they air Sunday.
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Watch even more commercials on SuperBowl-Ads.com
SuperBowl-Ads.com provides past commercials, much like Hulu does, but it goes one better: you can view commercials from Super Bowls dating back to 1998. It even has a few ads that aired earlier than that.
What's better on a Saturday afternoon when you're waiting for Sunday's game than to sit back and watch old commercials that you probably forgot about? Remember the old Budweiser commercials? They're on SuperBowl-Ads.com. So are all the GoDaddy commercials and just in case you're wondering, so is Apple's famous 1984 ad.
That said, there isn't an exhaustive collection of commercials and a bunch that I loved in the past are missing. Regardless, the site is still worth trying out.
Get your debate on with Twitter
According to a report from the Boston Globe, a real-time Twitter debate will start before the opening kickoff to allow everyone in the community to pick their favorite commercials and support their opinions against others who might disagree.
Granted, the debate is being used as a marketing ploy by ad agencies that want to promote their brand, and it's only being pitched to people in and around Boston, but who cares? That doesn't mean you can't start your own debate, or crash the Boston party.
Well, well, well. Here's something that just came into my inbox, and presumably the inboxes of the rest of the digital-media press corps: an e-mail from the media team at Hulu, the joint video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., announcing that the company will be running an ad during Sunday's Super Bowl XLIII. Considering the game airs on NBC, a Hulu ad is not too hard to fathom.
It seems like there's always a rumor about some huge tech announcement that will come to light during the annual football-and-advertising bacchanalia, like that Beatles-iTunes thing two years ago that never surfaced. But at least we know this one actually exists, and to boot, it sounds like Hulu is really hoping to make a splash along the lines of Apple's landmark "1984" ad that aired 25 years ago.
"During Super Bowl XLIII this Sunday, look for the launch of Hulu's ad campaign," the e-mail read. "Finally, we'll reveal the secret behind Hulu."
Ooh! Secrets! I love secrets! Clearly we will learn one of three things this Sunday:
1. Hulu is the Matrix.
2. Hulu is Luke Skywalker's father.
3. Hulu is people.
Aw, heck. With a revelation like this on the way, who cares whether the Steelers or Cardinals win?
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
YouTube's Super Bowl ads page is looking mighty fancy this year. They've created a new voting platform called Supervote. If anything, it's looking a little bit like Reddit with hot or not voting that moves each ad up or down based on user votes.
The page was set up as completely separate from the actual viewing gallery.
What interests me about this is whether or not this might become a permanent fixture on YouTube. There's already a star system for voting on YouTube videos, but having user-chosen list on the front page of YouTube as a replacement to the current listings for popular videos wouldn't surprise me.
YouTube and CBS have announced a partnership in the form of a contest for a chance to be featured during a Super Bowl commercial. YouTubers need simply create a 15-second video of anything they want and join the 15-second user group. The top five videos are picked by judges and put up on CBS.com, where people can vote on which one deserves the spot.
Dove is doing something similar for the Academy Awards, but the winners for that contest will get their own party out of it. There's no prize or revenue-sharing for this YouTube contest, so you're really only in it for the fame. What kind of message can be expressed in a quarter of a minute? Not a whole lot, but here's hoping for a Diet Coke and Mentos clip sandwiched by a beer commercial and a truck ad.
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